Hello, I am Strong.

Not yet having children myself, I watch young women and dear friends chartered on the treacherous path to raise young girls in 2019, and all I can do is pray! As did many of yours, my parents brought up three daughters in an era that while far from the Leave it to Beaver landscape seems worlds away from what young parents navigate now. Parenting today must feel like walking out eighteen years on a field littered with landmines of social media, cyber bullying, naked Snapchats, and as much as we hate to admit it, physical predators. In fact statistics show that 1 in every 3-5 women will be sexually assaulted at one point in her life and that someone is physically assaulted every 98 seconds in the US.

I say all this not to lead a plunge into paranoia, but to champion women and men alike who are being proactive with tactics of self-defense. To open all of our eyes as women young and old to the realities of a vulnerable world and to train our hands how to unlock the power that is inherent in all of us to protect the temple God made us to be.

This week on She’s in the City, we talked with Jodi Troutt, a Nashville native and owner of Fortis Self-Defense studio in Franklin, TN. Not only are we thrilled to jump into Fortis’s training programs, but we avidly support the mission beneath the mission of “empowering” women into confidence and courage within their bodies.

“I don’t like the word empower,” Jodi told us. With Fortis Jodi doesn’t impart new power into her students, but rather ignites the power already in us. In fact the origin of the Latin behind the logo is just that:

We love this concept because it takes a classic Israeli form of defense training called Krav maga which teaches traditional mindsets and physical skills yet can be tailored to people of any size, weight, age, athletic ability or lack thereof. It’s a work smarter, not harder concept that Jodi says suits women particularly well. Unfortunately most women are at a physical disadvantage if attacked by a man, but it’s a deficit Fortis’s Krav maga training is more than equipped to handle! Through ground fighting tactics known as grappling, “[Fortis] can take those positions of fear and vulnerability and show you how to make them powerful.” It’s more about leverage and technique than weight and size.

There were multiple motivators for Jodi and her husband to open Fortis last November. First and foremost, to elicit and embolden the power we all have in us to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. But also to create a place she calls the Island of Misfit Toys.

“We don’t want to just teach people self-defense. We want to create a community of people who may have never otherwise come in contact with each other.”

On that mat, she says, people do find the ultimate equality and respect.

We love everything about that! Listen to the full podcast to learn more about Fortis’s training classes as well as for two amazing give-aways we’ll be doing on social media throughout this week!